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Authors: Douglas Harding
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neither among those in heaven nor among those on earth. God alone stands unmoved.
Hermes Trismegistus
For a long while I used to circumambulate the Ka’ba. When I attained unto God, I saw the Ka’ba circumambulating me.
Bayazid al-Bistami
If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall move.
Jesus
(Faith - in Greek, pistis - doesn’t mean blind credulity, but confidence in one you trust. I say: trusting God includes trusting the visible behaviour of His Alps just as much as their visible form. It means valuing the smooth and stately dance of His mountain peaks as highly as their superb get-up.)
Prosecution Witness No. 6
THE HAIRDRESSER
Witness testifies that she cuts my hair regularly. Excuse me — styles it.
COUNSEL: What does it grow on?
WITNESS: His head, of course. The noddle he brings into my saloon for tidying up, once a month.
COUNSEL: Has the Accused ever told you that, in reality, he has no noddle to tidy up or to take anywhere? And that this is enough to prove he’s someone very special? Not a man at all, actually?
WITNESS: Well, he does sometimes joke like that. He says we shouldn’t charge him for doing nothing to nothing. Then I point to the hair trimmings on the floor, and he pretends to be absolutely astonished. We have a laugh and he pays up.
COUNSEL: Do you get the impression he’s mad?
WETNESS: Not at all. Just playful, pleasantly eccentric.
COUNSEL: Isn’t the idea that he’s walking around headless very odd? As for claiming this proves him divine: isn’t this odder than odd? In fact blasphemous, not to say devilish?
WITNESS: That’s going rather far. Though it looks a bit that way, now you mention it.
COUNSEL: Thank you. Please stay in the box. I see the Accused wishes to cross-examine you.
Defence: It’s Me, Not a Picture
I put it to the Witness that I never claimed I had no head. Quite the contrary.
MYSELF: Didn’t I say, again and again, that I have no head here, on these immensely broad shoulders, where it would look pimping, quite silly. And that I keep it parked a yard or so away behind glass, on top of that weedy, narrow-shouldered fellow who fits it to a tee? Didn’t I insist, in fact, that I set up around me countless ghostly Nokes-heads, all waiting out there for suitably positioned mirrors and people and their camera to pick up and make something of? To flesh out? Just as you’re doing right now?
WITNESS: Yes, I remember now. That was the sort of thing you talked about while I was styling your hair. At the time, it didn’t sound crazy, but quite obvious. Weird though, and rather exciting... Now I’m all confused...
I have no more questions. I thank the Witness. She stands down.
MYSELF: Your Honour, members of the Jury, I appear before you accused of blasphemy, a very serious crime. So serious, say I, that it’s the root and stem of all crime and delinquency.
What is it to blaspheme?
It is to insult the Almighty. Among the many ways a man can do this, two stand out. He can try playing God, or being God. Let’s take them in that order.
The playing-God blasphemer doesn’t state, in so many words, that God’s a fool or a liar. He doesn’t need to: he lives it. He stakes his life on the proposition that the Creator and Sustainer of that life doesn’t know His job; that His gifts as given are for rejecting out of hand; that the ground-plan of His design for a habitable universe is ill-conceived and fraudulent; and that he the creature knows better and can do better, thank you very much. So he substitutes for the divine world that he sees the human world that he thinks he sees, but in fact engineers. He doesn’t just strengthen the frame and re-panel the bodywork, as it were, and recondition the engine for better performance, but inverts and reverses the whole contraption, in the belief that he’s making it roadworthy and drivable. And then, to complete and compound the blasphemy,
Hermes Trismegistus
For a long while I used to circumambulate the Ka’ba. When I attained unto God, I saw the Ka’ba circumambulating me.
Bayazid al-Bistami
If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place, and it shall move.
Jesus
(Faith - in Greek, pistis - doesn’t mean blind credulity, but confidence in one you trust. I say: trusting God includes trusting the visible behaviour of His Alps just as much as their visible form. It means valuing the smooth and stately dance of His mountain peaks as highly as their superb get-up.)
Prosecution Witness No. 6
THE HAIRDRESSER
Witness testifies that she cuts my hair regularly. Excuse me — styles it.
COUNSEL: What does it grow on?
WITNESS: His head, of course. The noddle he brings into my saloon for tidying up, once a month.
COUNSEL: Has the Accused ever told you that, in reality, he has no noddle to tidy up or to take anywhere? And that this is enough to prove he’s someone very special? Not a man at all, actually?
WITNESS: Well, he does sometimes joke like that. He says we shouldn’t charge him for doing nothing to nothing. Then I point to the hair trimmings on the floor, and he pretends to be absolutely astonished. We have a laugh and he pays up.
COUNSEL: Do you get the impression he’s mad?
WETNESS: Not at all. Just playful, pleasantly eccentric.
COUNSEL: Isn’t the idea that he’s walking around headless very odd? As for claiming this proves him divine: isn’t this odder than odd? In fact blasphemous, not to say devilish?
WITNESS: That’s going rather far. Though it looks a bit that way, now you mention it.
COUNSEL: Thank you. Please stay in the box. I see the Accused wishes to cross-examine you.
Defence: It’s Me, Not a Picture
I put it to the Witness that I never claimed I had no head. Quite the contrary.
MYSELF: Didn’t I say, again and again, that I have no head here, on these immensely broad shoulders, where it would look pimping, quite silly. And that I keep it parked a yard or so away behind glass, on top of that weedy, narrow-shouldered fellow who fits it to a tee? Didn’t I insist, in fact, that I set up around me countless ghostly Nokes-heads, all waiting out there for suitably positioned mirrors and people and their camera to pick up and make something of? To flesh out? Just as you’re doing right now?
WITNESS: Yes, I remember now. That was the sort of thing you talked about while I was styling your hair. At the time, it didn’t sound crazy, but quite obvious. Weird though, and rather exciting... Now I’m all confused...
I have no more questions. I thank the Witness. She stands down.
MYSELF: Your Honour, members of the Jury, I appear before you accused of blasphemy, a very serious crime. So serious, say I, that it’s the root and stem of all crime and delinquency.
What is it to blaspheme?
It is to insult the Almighty. Among the many ways a man can do this, two stand out. He can try playing God, or being God. Let’s take them in that order.
The playing-God blasphemer doesn’t state, in so many words, that God’s a fool or a liar. He doesn’t need to: he lives it. He stakes his life on the proposition that the Creator and Sustainer of that life doesn’t know His job; that His gifts as given are for rejecting out of hand; that the ground-plan of His design for a habitable universe is ill-conceived and fraudulent; and that he the creature knows better and can do better, thank you very much. So he substitutes for the divine world that he sees the human world that he thinks he sees, but in fact engineers. He doesn’t just strengthen the frame and re-panel the bodywork, as it were, and recondition the engine for better performance, but inverts and reverses the whole contraption, in the belief that he’s making it roadworthy and drivable. And then, to complete and compound the blasphemy,
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